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From Cinderella to Princess of Cuba

Antoñica Izquierdo

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Antoñica Izquierdo became famous when her 2 year old son began to have very high fevers (at that time they called the feverish state of people hot) and since she did not have the resources to take him to the doctor in the midst of her logical desperation, she thought she had a divine revelation with the image of the Virgin Mary on January 8, 1936, which recommended that she bathe the child with the water from the nearest stream. When she did so, the boy improved, thus performing the miracle that would turn her into a celebrity.

She was born in the farm "Las Ayudas" in 1899. She was the sixth of the thirteen children of Matías Izquierdo and Rosalía González, Canarian immigrants established in that area of the Cayos de San Felipe since the nineteenth century. His belief was a mixture of Catholicism permeated with spiritualistic superstitions, a legacy of his Canarian descent.

In 1915 he married a neighbor of the farm, a poor tobacco farmer, and from this union seven children were born.

Antoñica's family moved to Isabel María and in 1934 only she remained in "Las Ayuda". Her husband, according to the testimony of his neighbors, did not like to work very much.

In January 1936 the youngest son became ill and in desperation to cure him of the fever in the early morning of the eighth Antoñica went to the nearby river and "cured" the child. The "miracle" had taken place.

The news spread rapidly and this became the first of the miracles performed by the miraculous. From this moment on, the protagonist becomes the adoration of many and arouses the rejection of others.

Antoñica Izquierdo became a natural leader, among the peasants fundamentally, promoting with her words that the land should be given to the peasants because they were what worked it, as well as, she was also a supporter of the passive resistance before the atrocities that the governments of the moment were committing and a sample of that influence is the fact that she was able to collect hundreds of electoral cards to prevent them from being given to any politician; This is why it began to be considered a serious threat to those who had traditionally benefited from the ignorance of the poorest and humblest in society.

Faced with such a situation, the politicians of the time accused her of illegally practicing medicine, for which she was analyzed in the Viñales Correctional Facility, where she was acquitted for lack of evidence. Later, with the arrival of the 1944 elections, she was again accused by the politicians and taken to the Audiencia de Pinar del Río, where a case was filed for dementia and sent to the Hospital de Mazorra as a result of the judges' ruling.

She died in Mazorra after having been hospitalized with a diagnosis of dementia that came very well to the politicians of the time who could not allow such a popular character to call women not to vote and men not to respect the laws of men.

Several books, poems, tenths and newspapers of the time speak about life and the religion it created.

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